Yesterday we saw the passing of another cold front across the mid-Atlantic, followed by high pressure building in throughout the entire eastern half of the United States. This resulted in a strong north/northwesterly flow from Glasgow, Montana down to Brownsville, Texas and all the way to the east coast from Caribou, Maine down to Key West, Florida. The migration signal on the radar last night was phenomenal. Here’s it is from 7:00pm last night through 5:00am this morning.
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
The mid-Atlantic region experienced heavy migration traffic last night, as a great many birds entered the region from the northeastern US. The velocity image indicates that most birds were headed in a NW->SE direction just after sunset, but that this trajectory slowly changed to N->S as the night progressed into morning. As of 5:00am this morning, winds at ~3000 feet remain northwesterly, while winds at the surface have turned more northeasterly. Because there was so much easterly movement early in the night, I would presume that many birds were funneled down over Cape May during the early morning hours, and therefore that would be the best birding location this morning. The radar does indicate heavy densities over the northern Delaware Bay shore as of 5:00am, so these will be good places to check this morning as well. For the rest of the state, as migration occurred unimpeded last night, locations known for being good fall migrant traps will be the best bets. Chimney Rock should be very good this morning for migrating land birds, and should also see a good raptor flight as the day warms up. There doesn’t appear to have been any influx from PA, as winds over the state were more northerly. Therefore sites along the eastern side of the Delaware River, while productive, will be less so than their counterparts further east. Otherwise, sites throughout PA should see new birds this morning as migration was quite heavy and widespread there as well.
Okay, now it’s time to go out and ground-truth the radar… so please make sure to stop by and let us know what you’ve seen!
Good Birding
David
P.S. Come check out my migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org
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9 responses to “Largest migration event of the season, thus far”
An hour walking around Hutcheson Memorial Forest (http://hmf.rutgers.edu) yielded plenty of birds, but little diversity of long-distance migrants. Historically, HMF is no the best place for Fall migration (it picks up later in the season, does very well for sparrows in late fall, and is a much better spring migration location) so I wasn’t expecting too much.
The best birds were a group of three Black-throated Green Warblers, one of which appeared to drop out of the sky over one of our plowed fields, and upon entering the Red Cedar thicket, was joined by two other chipping individuals. Although I took that as a sign of things to come, everything was pretty slow thereafter. Several American Redstarts were present, as was a Magnolia Warbler, but aside from the plethora of Common Yellowthroats, that pretty much summed up the warbler diversity.
One Rose-breasted Grosbeak was heard “chink”-ing in the woods, and where we lacked in warbler diversity, we made up for in short-distance migrant numbers. Common Grackles could be seen streaming overhead, as were plenty of American Robins, Blue Jays and Cedar Waxwings. Gray Catbirds are still around in good numbers, although not as high as they had been only days ago, as are Eastern Towhees and Field Sparrows. Both Carolina and House wrens were represented as well.
I’m eager to hear what the conditions were like elsewhere!
Good Birding
David
Duke Farms was virtually dead over the course of the hour I had to spare. This place really needs a weather event to see high volume migrant traffic, but I was surprised at how little activity there was. One Parula, an empid spp….lots of the birds that had been hanging around (thrashers, maggies, big numbers of catbirds, indigo buntings) cleared out. Can’t wait to see reports from south Jersey.
Brian
I hear ya. We’re in the same boat as far as needing weather to concentrate birds (except that you have the added benefit of more landmass). I bet after two more nights of migration we’ll both be seeing more birds in our respective areas (the compounding effect of multiple migrations, and the limiting factor of time needed to refuel).
Cheers
David
Robins Robins Robins at Liberty State Park
6 or 7 swarbler sp., 1 Philly Vireo !, and a few other migrants
No great numbers (other than Robins that is)
Well, David was correct in his prediction of sites on the east side of the Delaware being productive, but not greatly so. I birded Gloucester County this morning. Areas along the Delaware River. Species numbers – low. Diversity – low to medium. Here are my highlights:
1 ACADIAN FLYCATCHER
1 ALDER FLYCATCHER
1 GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER
1 EASTERN PEWEE
1 PHILADELPHIA VIREO
2 RED-EYED VIREOS
1 NASHVILLE WARBLER
5 PARULAS
1 MAGNOLIA WARBLER
1 BLACK-THROATED BLUE
2 PALMS
1 BLACK and WHITE WARBLER
4 REDSTARTS
1 NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH
8 COMMON YELLOWTHROATS
2 SCARLET TANAGERS
1 ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK
BOBOLINKS – calling and flying overhead.
Sandy Hook was quite slow. We stayed for only 2 and half hours. Diversity was low and the numbers were also very low and not worth detailing below. The birds must just have kept on going. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of days.
Celery Farm: extremely slow/quiet for me but a lot of it was plain bad luck/timing as I was hearing plenty of warbler chips but just none were staying put in one place. Only warbler I actually saw was a probable Tennessee. Also had an Indigo Bunting. Other birders did have birds when the sun came out incl. Blackburn, Nash, BT Green, Tanager, Grosbeak, and a probable CT Warb.
Hoping for better luck tomorrow
Migration is interesting, for sure. You can see what a similar migration event brought to Florida on my other site: http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com
As with NJ, there was widespread migration last night but no weather to concentrate birds- which resulted in a very patchy (and apparently somewhat random) distribution of migrants.
Palmyra – very slow – 6:30am to 2:00pm:
1 Great Crested Flycatcher
3 Warbling Vireo
2 Philadelphia Vireo
5 Red-eyed Vireo
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Blue-gray Gnat Catcher
1 Swainson’s Thrush
2 Wood Thrush
2 Northern Parula
3 Magnolia Warbler
4 Black-throated Blue
2 Palm Warbler
4 Black and White Warbler
4 American redstart
7 Common Yellowthroat
1 Scarlet Tanager
2 Rose-brested Grosbeak